Grave Robber
by DarkNymfa
Summary: "Your dad made you ghosts," O blurted out before he could think of it. The ghost nodded again. "He made… all of us." "All of you?" K repeated, before realization seemed to dawn. Just like it dawned for O. Masters had found a way to force the dead to form as ghosts. (Ectoberweek2019, Day 5)


I'm gonna be honest. This is 2500 words of set-up because I had absolutely planned on making this fic way longer. But time constraints happened, and as much as I had hoped to be able to go back and finish this fic before posting it, I can't even guarantee that I can get the last two up on the right days, so... yeah. I'll write the rest of it later, add it as a second chapter, and when I do I'll change the tags as appropriate.

Also the internet has been out all day and I'm in a super duper big rush so uhhh. I'm kind of hurrying through posting this, sorry!

Content warnings for implied and referenced character death (destabilizing of ghosts), and for implied/referenced child abuse/death

* * *

Agent O shifted the ecto-gun in his hands, his finger on the trigger. He nodded at Agent K on the other side of the door.

They slammed open the door, guns swinging around to aim at any threats present beyond it.

No immediate danger. Just a narrow staircase down. No ghosts.

He stepped forward, taking each step slowly. He kept his gun steady, aimed forward in case a ghost laid in wait downstairs. Behind him, he could hear the rest of the team follow his lead, creeping down the stairs.

Finally it opened up into a large room, every surface plated in steel—the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling. Some kind of machinery sat along the walls, but Agent O didn't have the chance to inspect them.

A ghost stood there, in the middle of the lab. Very humanoid, but short, with a young face. More intriguingly, it looked so similar to Phantom that O could've sworn that they were related—except that ghosts can't _be_ related.

The ghost balled its small fists, its posture tense. It remained grounded, oddly enough, standing in the open center of the floor.

O kept his gun aimed at it, his team flaring out behind them.

It likely wouldn't be a threat, based on the other ghosts they had run into, but he didn't want to take any unnecessary risks. The animalistic ghosts out in the grounds were vicious, but lacked intellect. The closer they had come to this room, the more human, the smarter, the ghosts had gotten.

Even if they had all dissolved into ectoplasm when they took a hard enough hit, there was no saying what kind of damage this one could do if they gave it a chance.

"Leave," the ghost said, voice high-pitched and young. "I don't want to fight you."

Agent L, who had always been a little too cocky for O's tastes, scoffed. "So what will you do if we don't, huh?"

The ghost narrowed its eyes. "I don't _want_ to fight, but I _will_. I _need_ to."

"Yeah? Who—or what—is forcing you, huh?" L quirked an eyebrow, ignoring O's gestures to please just _stop talking_. "Nobody _needs_ to fight."

"You don't understand!" the ghost snapped back, tensing up even further. Its aura flickered bright and wide. "I _need_ to protect the incubator, no matter what!"

Agent O frowned. An incubator? Was that what all these ghosts were supposed to be protecting? What could Masters possibly be incubating here, that made him go as far as to bind down _ghosts_ to guard it? Why not just hire _human_ guards?

Next to him, Agent K cleared his throat. Then, uncertainty in his voice, he asked the ghost, "Do you mean… _that_ incubator?"

His partner released his gun with one hand to point at one of the machines displayed along the walls. The ghost turned to look, allowing Agent O a chance to inspect it as well. It seemed to be a cylinder of glass, with metal along the top, bottom, and back. The back was covered in ectoplasm, with the bottom half of it filled with liquid ectoplasm as well.

He highly doubted that this was the incubator the ghost was referring to. After all, there was nothing that _could_ incubate in ectoplasm, was there? Besides ghosts, he supposed, but those didn't need incubating; they just formed, and that was it.

But the ghost blanched. All fight seemed to drain from it, its shoulders slumping down and its fists falling by its sides.

"No," it said, softly, eyes large and wet. "No, I can't- Why did it fail?"

Agent O shared a look with Agent K. They could ambush the ghost now, while it had its back turned to them. Capturing it would provide them with a wealth of information, especially if it shared any traits with Phantom besides appearance.

"Well, I'm not an expert-" Agent L started, and O turned to shoot him a sharp look. From the corner of his eye, he saw the ghost turn to face L as well. "-But I'm guessing that cutting the power might've done the trick."

The ghost looked at him, wide-eyed. "Oh," it whispered. "So I… failed. It was my fault."

Agent L opened his mouth again, but O shot him a heated glare over his sunglasses, and L's jaws clicked shut. Good. They were lucky that the ghost had decided that _it_ was to blame, rather than blaming _them_ for cutting the power in the first place.

A sniffle drew O's attention back forward, and he blinked, stunned. The sniffle had come from the _ghost_, who looked genuinely upset. It wiped a hand past its eyes, but the motion seemed to dislodge its tears instead. A few tears, faintly glowing in the low lights, rolled over its cheeks.

"I _failed_," it croaked out, its voice breaking with emotion. _False_ emotion. It _had_ to be false emotion; ghosts couldn't feel. It had to be… falsified, somehow. A really convincing act. "I failed him. I promised Daddy, and I- I-"

O's stomach clenched. 'Daddy'… That had to be Masters, right? No one else could've ordered it to guard here, in Masters' mansion. So then why would it call him… _that_?

"Who is… Who did you promise, exactly?" he asked, despite himself. He told himself that he was just using the opportunity to learn more. The ghost could tell them information that they couldn't learn from the tech lying around in the lab.

He ignored the quiet voice in the back of his head that told him no, that whispered, _ghosts can only lie_, and, _you can't trust anything it tells you_.

The ghost looked up at him, still sniffling miserably. It wiped a gloved hand past its eyes again, rather uselessly. "Why are you asking?"

"Maybe we can… help," he managed, the words awkward in his mouth. He'd never been very good at comforting. "Why did he ask you to guard the incubator? What was growing in there?"

It swallowed, heavily, making a third attempt at wiping away its tears. Finally, it seemed to have some success. He must've distracted it from crying.

"I… My brother… He was in there." She looked over her shoulder, back at the glass tube, and sniffled again. "He's… He's _gone_, now, and it's my fault!"

O hushed it, soothingly, before he knew it. Completely automatically, creeping forward slightly. He froze in the spot, coming to his senses. Realized that he had lowered his gun entirely, the weapon aimed at the floor instead of the ghost.

But it didn't react to the lowering of his guard. Continued to look distraught, moments away from bursting into tears again.

He licked his lips. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

"Your… brother?" he asked the ghost, keeping his eyes on it. "Your brother became a ghost, but he was still growing in there?"

"Uh huh." The ghost nodded, the tear tracks on its face glinting in the light. "Daddy didn't want him to… He wanted him to be strong. Not like… Not like us."

"Your dad _made_ you ghosts," O blurted out before he could think of it. As soon as he realized that he had said it out loud, he snapped his jaws shut, but it was too late.

The ghost nodded again. "He made… all of us."

"All of you?" K repeated, before realization seemed to dawn. Just like it dawned for O.

The animals outside. The more humanoid ghosts inside. This one, right here.

Masters had found a way to force the dead to form as ghosts. And he'd been _enslaving_ them, forcing them to follow his orders.

Good lord.

"But none of you were strong enough?" Agent M asked, a tremor to his voice. He, too, had lowered his gun.

Actually, now that O was looking back, he realized that _everyone_ had lowered their guns. The realization had drained the fight out of each and every one of them.

"No," the ghost confirmed, scuffing a foot on the steel floor of the lab. "We all… We don't last, when we use our powers. Daddy knew how to fix it, he said, he just needed a little more time. So we had to wait. And then he would fix all of us."

O swallowed, trying to dislodge the clog in his throat. It didn't work.

"But if he could fix all of you," he said, slowly, "Why did your brother have to stay in the incubator? Couldn't he be fixed, just like all of you?"

"Oh," the ghost said, looking up from the floor and meeting his eyes. Just like Phantom, its eyes were ectoplasm green, and glowed faintly.

Unlike Phantom, they seemed to shine with life, with emotion.

"Oh," it said again, blinking slowly. "I… Yeah. I guess he could've. But… I don't understand…"

"Can you clear something up for us?" O asked, crouching in front of the ghost. He felt vulnerable, but… it hadn't lashed out, yet. Seemed more content to talk. "Your dad, who made you and your brother… as you are now. His name is Vlad Masters, yes?"

"Um." The ghost wiped a hand past its eyes, smearing the tear trails away almost completely. "Yeah, I believe so. Do you… know him?"

"By name." The fingers of O's free hand rattled on his thigh as he thought. "Do you know why he was so intent on making you all ghosts? How did he do it?"

It shrugged. "He just wanted us to be… good. As good as we could be."

"So then why did he take _more _care with your brother? Why did he leave you out here to guard him, if you were both equally… sick?"

"I…" It licked its lips, looked at the cylinder of ectoplasm again. "I… I think he might've liked him more… I think that he wanted… his perfect son. Not- Not me."

O's heart clenched. He refused to acknowledge it.

Suddenly the ghost jerked, straightening its posture and balling its fists.

"No," it said, voice harsh. "No, I can't- I _refuse_. You're all- all _liars_, lying to me, making me believe that Daddy is a bad man! I won't _let _you!"

Agent O scrambled backwards, raising his gun at the same time. From his peripherals, he could see his fellow agents do the same.

The ghost snarled, green energy gathering around its clenched fists. Its aura flickered brighter, but it lacked the steady glow of other ghosts.

It really _was_ weak. It was young, not just by human standards. Masters must have grown it recently.

Briefly, O wondered if the ghost was related to Masters, or if he had acquired the child otherwise.

He stamped the thought out as quickly as it had come. He couldn't afford to think of that, not now. Not while the ghost had turned to its innate violent nature.

"I'll- I'll make you all pay!" the ghost snapped at them. The ectoplasm coiling around its fists flared.

But O's eye caught on bright green lower than its fists. Below its bright eyes, below the bright swirling around its fists…

It was melting.

Its legs were losing their monochrome coloration, reverting into thick, globby ectoplasm. Just like all the other ghosts had done, once they had taken too much of a beating.

This ghost… It must've been younger, still. Hadn't stabilized yet. Masters probably never intended for it to, if he had taken it out of the incubator.

For some reason, this specific ghost hadn't met his standards. Even though it considered him its dad. Even though it must've cared about him tons, even during life, for those memories to have retained. Or the love for Masters, at least.

O lowered his gun, just slightly.

"What-" K asked him, sharply, but O shook his head and he quieted.

"Look," O told him, turning his head towards the ghost. K followed his gaze, inhaled sharply.

Then he, too, lowered his gun.

"What?" the ghost snapped at them. Then it followed their collective gazes, and turned its eyes towards its feet as well.

It gasped. Extinguished the ectoblasts immediately.

And, like a miracle, the ectoplasm around its feet pulled itself back together. Returned back to its previous shape, coloration, texture.

The ghost let out a sigh of relief, slumping in on itself.

Agent O shared a look with Agent K. They couldn't leave the ghost here. This mansion needed to be cleaned out by their team, to ensure that they collected all the proof of Masters' work here.

He was creating ghosts. Not only was harboring them illegal, thanks to the Anti-Ecto laws, but _creating_ them implied that he was killing people for that specific purpose.

O counted back. The ghost here, and its brother in the incubator. At least two other humanoid ones in the mansion. A small ghost that had zipped around, too tiny and too fast for them to inspect properly, but glowing too brightly to be useful as an ambush.

So many animal-like ghosts outside that O wasn't even sure that they had gotten all of them.

And Masters was responsible for all of them. Had won enough of their trust during life that they followed his orders in death.

He crouched in front of the ghost. The one ghost left, as far as they knew. The only intelligent one, certainly.

"Come with us," he told it. "We'll do our best to fix what Masters refused to. And, with your help, we can make sure he pays for what he has done."

The ghost looked at him, eyes narrowed. The glow had dimmed considerably. Must be exhausted.

"Pays for what?"

"For making you all ghosts." He looked past the ghost, at the incubator. "For making you suffer through this, knowing that you couldn't last like this."

"He didn't know!" the ghost insisted, fists balling again.

O shook his head. "If he hadn't, why would he have taken you out of the incubator, but left your brother? He knew. He knew, and he decided that the only one he cared about saving was _him_. But we will help. Or try, at least, more than Masters ever did."

"I…" The ghost looked at the incubator as well, gaze lingering. After a long moment, she nodded, once, slow. "Okay. I- You're right."

He reached over, gently laying a hand on her shoulder. "Come along, then. We've got quite a ways to go before we're home."

"Okay," she said, trailing after him, up the stairs and out of the lab.

And Agent O ignored the quiet voice in the back of his head, which traitorously whispered at him, _'you only care about her because she's young.'_

Because, he couldn't deny, she _was_. Young when she had died, and barely formed as a ghost.

O was going to make sure that Masters paid. But, first, he had to take care of this ghost.

She had suffered enough.

* * *

I'm not gonna share all of my notes for how the story was gonna continue, but it was _supposed _to focus more on Dani and to become found family, with the GiW just sort of... adopting her. Like I said in the starting notes, I'll get around to writing that part soon-ish.


End file.
